Hello Summer! We made it through another school year and another bid season. If you're still hanging tough in school food service, props to you! It's been a tough few years and our industry has had to be innovative, patient, resilient, and persistent!

Thank you to everyone who has stuck around, with us and with school nutrition. It's tough out there, but the bottom line is that so many kids rely on school nutrition programs for healthy meals and without all of you, those programs wouldn't run. So keep up the good work! And here's to summer!

USDA Food and Nutrition Services released a forecast of studies, evaluations and projects it expects to pursue in Fiscal Year 2022, with topics including support for school meals, meal costs, the benefit of school meals, and direct certification in the NSLP. You can find the forecast of studies and plans here: https://fns-prod.azureedge.us/sites/default/files/resource-files/study-and-evaluation-plan-2022.pdf

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, students nationwide have had access to free breakfast and lunch in school through the federal universal school meals program, but that funding has ended. There have been moves to extend that federal program or to create a new one, but none have succeeded thus far. Instead, we're starting to see states pass universal school meal programs, one at a time.

California will become the first state to implement a statewide Universal Meals Program beginning in the 2022-2023 school year. Both breakfast and lunch for all children each school day are included. To learn more, please visit https://www.cde.ca.gov/ls/nu/sn/cauniversalmeals.asp

Vermont is moving forward with one-year pilot program for universal school meals funded by a surplus in the education fund. They are planning to use this pilot program to analyze the long-term funding for the program in the future. You can read more at https://www.universalschoolmealsvt.org or https://education.vermont.gov/student-support/nutrition

Interflex offers solutions for every member of the supply chain and we have a couple of new things to show you this year, including a new procurement tool for school districts and our Connect product database! Get in touch with us today to learn more.

The Culinary Institute of Child Nutrition, in partnership with Team Nutrition, has launched a new series of Grab & Go Recipes for Child Nutrition Programs! These recipes all meet school nutrition standards and are meant to be portable and appealing menu items that are simple to prepare and utilize a variety of USDA Foods.

Have you seen the guide to planting a school garden from USDA's Team Nutrition? It includes information on the benefits of a school garden, how to build one, a recommended plant list, guidance on maintenance, as well as additional resources. You can find the guide at: https://files.constantcontact.com/e5582ed6201/bbb05ac4-e02c-42b8-8b6b-66951a0c1759.pdf?rdr=true

USDA’s Team Nutrition has published a new Guide to Smart Snacks in School. This booklet gives easy-to-understand tips on how to meet Smart Snacks standards and why they are important.

June is National Dairy Month! National Dairy Month started out as National Milk Month in 1937 as a way to promote drinking milk. It was initially created to stabilize the dairy demand when production was at a surplus, but has now developed into an annual tradition meant to celebrate the dairy industry and dairy products.

USDA regulations currently allow school districts participating in the National School Lunch Program and School Breakfast Program to offer both unflavored low-fat milk (1% fat), and flavored or unflavored nonfat milk for students in grades k-12 and for sale as a competitive beverage.

The top categories in Dairy Products, according to bid award data from Interflex's AwardedBids.com for the 2021-2022 school year, are as follows:

What does Interflex do? Below is a listing of our current solutions and a little about how each can help simplify and streamline your k12 bid business. If you're interested in learning more about any of our available solutions, please contact custserv@interflex.net.

Our role is to help operators that need food and supplies to connect with distributors and manufacturers that are able to supply them. Awardedbids.com is a dedicated source of product and SKU level market intel in K-12 school foodservice. We can help you to guide your sales activities or those of your broker network or DSRs, increasing their efficiency and saving you money. They can time calls, samples, and visits according to the operator's specific business cycle and identify contracts having no further options to renew. We deliver the opportunities to you as they’re published and notify you of the result.

Supply chain struggles have made effective price tracking and management more important than ever. Our BAM system streamlines the pricing process and increases efficiency between distributors, manufacturers & brokers. The system can be tailored to your specific needs and strategies.

The free, online procurement tool designed to help schools with creating specifications, finding product information, and managing the bid process from publishing your opportunity to awarding the bid.

We have a customer service team dedicated to helping you! Please feel free to reach out!